


A Rhapsody Divine

by dollsome



Category: The Durrells (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 21:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21004343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: The news that Spiros is newly almost-single catches the unwanted interest of one of his old flames. Louisa tries to help him handle the situation. Everything, predictably, turns to pure chaos. (Set during late season three.)





	A Rhapsody Divine

**Author's Note:**

> This got out of hand. My love of pure, farcical shenanigans took over!! (And this show is so the place for those!)
> 
> Set between 3.07 and 3.08.

Spiros bursts into the villa one morning, sending the chicken flying off the table and into the path of Louisa’s head. It narrowly misses her, leaving the sound of flapping wings in her ears before strutting into the sitting room. At this point, she’s grown used to birds flying at her face at all hours. She chooses to take that as a sign that she’s become a stalwart and hardy individual.

“Good morning, Spiros!” she says, checking her hair for feathers. “We weren’t expecting you. Did you honk as you came up the drive? I didn’t hear the horn. In any case, it’s lovely to see you. Lugaretzia is ill today -- the kind of ill where she actually stayed home in bed instead of coming here to gripe about it -- and the children are all off having misadventures, so it’s been quite lonely. You must have sensed that I needed company--”

“NO,” Spiros interrupts. She knows that tone very well, but he never uses it on her.

“Well, all right then,” Louisa says, and mutters to herself, “Tell me how you really feel.”

Spiros sighs, contrite. “I’m sorry. It is lovely to see you, Mrs. Durrells, as always. The sunshine of my day. The reason I lift my head from the pillow in the morning.”

“Yes, yes,” she says, pleased. “You can stop atoning now.”

“Good.”

“What brings you here?”

Spiros looks to his left, then his right. He’s giving off the energy of one of Gerry’s more skittish animals. “I need _ help_.”

“With what?”

He glances out the door, narrows his eyes suspiciously, then ducks down underneath the table.

Well, this is interesting.

Louisa crouches down beside him. She frowns once she’s settled. The floor needs a sweep, and it’s all too apparent from this vantage point. Fortunately, Spiros doesn’t seem to notice.

“Why are we under the table?” she asks in a stage whisper.

“The news that my wife has left me, it has spread across the island.”

“Oh, Spiros. I’m sorry. How horrible.” She pats his arm. “And now you’ve gone into hiding.”

“No, it is not that. The news has reached …” His tone turns ominous. “... certain peoples.”

“Certain people?” Louisa repeats, perplexed.

“Certain _ women_.”

“Ohh.” Louisa nods.

Spiros nods back at her.

It’s a good five seconds of just nodding knowingly at each other. Really very unproductive.

“Well, you can’t just leave me with that,” she chides at last. “What woman is hunting you? Assuming there’s just the one.”

_ There’s not, _a voice in her head says unhelpfully. She shushes it.

“Just one, but it might as well be twenty. Her name is Callista. Many years ago, we were sweethearts for a little while. Before I was married, of course.”

“Of course,” Louisa says. “Because you can’t very well have a sweetheart while you’re married, now can you?”

Spiros stares at her.

Louisa curses inwardly. She usually keeps herself much more under control on that subject.

Well. A little more.

On a good day.

“So,” she says hurriedly, “what’s so bad about this Callista?”

Spiros groans. “She is a madwoman.”

“Oh really? And she’s escaped her attic, I gather.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just being British. Go on about the ... madwoman.”

“She never married. Her mother died when she was still quite young, so she stayed at home to raise her younger siblings. Then one of her sisters got pregnant--”

“Oh dear.”

“With triplets.”

“Oh my.”

“So now she is helping her sister raise the triplets and looking after the rest of the family. Her father’s health, it is not so good now either, so hers is a life of domestic servitude. Without any of the good parts.”

“Why, that’s so sad,” Louisa says. “She sounds more like a saint than a madwoman.”

“She can be a saint,” Spiros says, “but she can be a sinner too.”

Louisa feels a stab of something she pretends isn’t jealousy.

“She is … very passionate. All of her frustration about life, she lets out in other ways. Well. One other way.” A slightly glazed look takes over his face.

“Enough of that,” she orders, elbowing him.

“Ahem.” He returns to himself. “She is the only one of my old girlfriends who isn’t married now, and I am the only one of her old boyfriends who has no wife at home, and so she thinks this is a reason to start things up again.”

“And … is it?” Louisa asks warily.

“No!” he says. She feels a rush of irrational joy. “But all week, wherever I go, she is there too. I go to the market, she is at the next stall. I go for a drink, she is a table away. Yesterday, I went out to my car and she was sitting in it.”

“Really?”

“She said she needed a ride.”

“Well, you _ are _ a taxi driver.”

“But she didn’t want to go anywhere.”

“Ah,” Louisa says delicately.

“She is obsessed. She will not rest until she’s got what she wants.” Spiros runs his hands through his hair in distress.

“Are you sure you’re not reading into things?”

“What?” He looks up. His hair is adorably mussed. “You think someone would not be obsessed with me?”

“I think,” she says, reaching over to smooth out his hair, “that men are very keen to call a woman crazy just because she isn’t a perfect little housewife who exists to dote on others and never thinks of her own desires.”

Spiros frowns. “And you think I am a man like that?”

“I don’t,” Louisa admits with a sigh, “but don’t you agree you could be overreacting a little?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” In a jesting tone, she adds, “She hasn’t found us yet.”

“Give it time,” Spiros says darkly.

“Frank,” she calls to the sloth, “do play lookout for us up there, please.”

“Do _ not _ bring Frank into this. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“Spiros, I think you’re exaggerating.”

“Fine. How about this? I will stay here today, and I bet you that she shows up looking for me before sunset.”

And, well. The idea of spending the day with Spiros sounds much better than dwelling on the lost family inheritance or wiping down all the surfaces in the house because a very nude American writer recently wandered all around it. Besides, it really is so nice to have Spiros back to his old cheerful self again. Who wouldn’t want to have him around? She, for one, can’t imagine such a person.

Louisa attempts not to seem as eager as she is. “What do I get if she doesn’t show up? Which she won’t, by the way, because I had never even heard of this woman until you walked in, and she has no reason to come to my house or even know where it is.”

“What do you want?” Spiros asks, his eyes gleaming in amusement.

Best not get into that.

“You do all the chores around here for one day,” she devises after a moment, “while I kick back and watch you work and eat grapes like a goddess.”

“I eat grapes while I work?”

“No,” Louisa says impatiently. To be fair, it wasn’t her finest syntax. “I eat the grapes. You can feed them to me. When you aren’t sweeping, dusting, or scrubbing.”

Spiros’s mouth quirks in approval. “Deal.”

They shake hands.

“Can we get up from under the table now?” Louisa asks.

“I like it down here.” His arm presses against hers. “It’s cozy.”

“Cozy it is,” she agrees. _ Too _ cozy. “But we’ve got chores to do, especially since a certain hypochondriac friend of ours isn’t joining me today.”

Spiros frowns in confusion. “I thought I only do the chores if I lose the bet.”

“Oh no,” Louisa says breezily as she stands, “you’re doing the chores either way. But this way, you get the pleasure of doing them with me.”

He chuckles, staring up at her in a way that doesn’t make her think at all of gallant knights kneeling at the feet of their beloved ladies. _ Or _marriage proposals. “Lucky me.”

“Too right. Now, up you get.” She offers her hand and he lets her pull him up from the floor.

And so the games begin.

+

It’s an altogether fabulous morning. Louisa loves Lugaretzia, of course (even if she’s not quite as wild about the woman’s very specific descriptions of her various ailments), but having Spiros around to help her and keep her company brings a new level of delight to the day. She had never imagined that doing the dishes could be such a laugh.

Noon comes ‘round and there’s no sign of any desperate women.

“I could have sworn we were expecting some formidable temptress to come try to steal you, Spiros,” Louisa says as she puts lunch on the table in front of Gerry, the only one of her children to return for the midday meal. “What was her name? Circe? Calypso?”

“Very funny,” Spiros replies as he sets a cup of water beside Gerry’s plate, then a bowl of the same on the floor for Roger.

“We’ll have to be careful, or she might add us to the menagerie. If it’s any consolation, I think you would make a very handsome pig.”

“Thank you. And soon you will eat your words.”

“You have strange conversations when it’s just the two of you,” Gerry remarks.

“It’s rude to eavesdrop,” Louisa says. “Tuck in, dear.”

+

The next few hours slip by peacefully. They’re in the middle of stringing clean laundry on the line in the afternoon heat, laughing and talking, when a raven-haired beauty walks up the drive. Louisa hopes that she’s one of Larry’s ill-advised flings.

A glance at Spiros’s face confirms no such luck.

“You lose,” Spiros mutters into her ear. “And so do I.”

Louisa inspects the new arrival. For an old maid who’s being slowly devoured by the demands of her family, she’s positively sultry. And wearing a very cute dress. “Good lord. Look at her. Are you sure you aren’t interested?”

“She is not my type.”

“What is your type?”

Spiros looks at her, but before he can say anything, their new guest has reached them.

Best be polite, then. There’s no reason to ostracize this woman just because she wants to climb a totally platonic family friend like a tree. “Kalimera! I’m Louisa Durrell. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” this Callista woman says brusquely, walking past Louisa’s offered hand. “Spiros. Here you are.”

“Yes,” he says with the resigned air of a man giving into death. “Here I am.”

Callista pouts prettily, a trick Louisa has never gotten the hang of. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I know,” Spiros says, glum.

“You never answered my question.”

“Question?”

Callista moves forward into Spiros’s space and says something in Greek that Louisa only catches bits of. (She really does need to become more diligent about her language learning.) Bits are enough. Good heavens.

After a lingering pause, Spiros clears his throat and says in English, “No thank you.”

“I know Dimitra,” Callista persists. “She holds a grudge. She won’t come back, if that’s what you are worried about.”

A dark cloud passes over Spiros’s face. Louisa feels the sudden urge to wrestle this very beautiful woman right into the sea.

“That has nothing to do with it,” Spiros says.

“You are sad,” Callista says. “I understand. You’re a good man. But there is no use in both of us being lonely, now, is there?”

“I am not lonely.” It sounds like he means it. Louisa thinks of their day together and glows inwardly.

“Come on. Everyone has seen you moping around, drinking too much. Playing sad songs.”

“Maybe before,” Spiros says, “but not now. I am much better.”

“I doubt that, poor man,” Callista says, “but you could be.”

She dances her fingers up Spiros’s chest. Louisa watches her hand like she usually would one of Gerry’s more hideous insects.

“I've told you no,” Spiros says firmly, moving her hand away with careful fingers.

Again, the pretty pout. “You used to like me.”

“I like you now,” Spiros says gently. “But not like that.”

“Who says that to a woman?” Callista laments. She even laments alluringly. “You hurt me very badly.”

Louisa can see Spiros’s chivalry at war with his discomfort, and it fills her with the irrepressible urge to do something, anything.

“Best to just come out with it,” she says, her voice a surprise in her own ears.

Callista looks at her like she’s just remembered there’s someone else here. Spiros tilts his head in confusion.

“He can’t be with you,” Louisa invents wildly, “because he’s already … with me.”

Spiros’s eyes widen. It would be hilarious if Louisa hadn’t just dug her own grave and leapt right in.

“You?” Callista says doubtfully. “The animal-hoarding woman who poisoned everybody last year?”

A heartening description if there ever was one. “So you do know me, then.”

“I’ve heard of you.”

“Good things, I hope,” Louisa says uselessly.

Spiros coughs. Callista gives her a look that confirms the things were not, in fact, good.

“Anyway,” Louisa perseveres, reaching for Spiros’s hand. There’s no choice but to stick with it now. “We’re absolutely over the moon for each other. Aren’t we … schnookums?”

“Oh,” Spiros says, squeezing her hand, “yes, pudding head.”

Louisa makes a face at him. Spiros shrugs.

“You have moved on fast,” Callista remarks to Spiros.

“What can I say?” Spiros says. “When it’s love, it’s love.”

Louisa tries very hard not to let that one anywhere near her heart.

“And this is love?” Callista tests.

“Oh, yes,” Spiros says. “We are wild about each other.”

“Feral, really,” Louisa agrees.

Fittingly, one of the pelicans (Pelicant, she thinks) lets out a squawk. How very supportive of him.

“I see,” Callista says flatly.

“We’ve been absolutely smitten,” Louisa carries on, “ever since the day he first drove up to me when I arrived on the island. I saw his face, and, well, how does the song go? Zing went the strings of my heart.”

“Zing, hmm? When you were still married?” Callista narrows her eyes at Spiros.

Whoops.

“Obviously ours was an unspoken longing,” Spiros explains in that blustering tone that comes out when he wants to seem more convincing than he feels. “Buried very deep. Until my wife left. Then we …”

“Spoke it,” Louisa says.

“Yes,” Spiros agrees.

“We seldom stop speaking it, in fact,” Louisa adds.

She puts an arm around Spiros as best she can, which isn’t very at the moment. If she’s thought about embracing him before, well, this moment absolutely isn’t the dream come true. Both of them seem to have too many limbs and not enough all at once. After a few seconds of awkward floundering, they settle into some approximation of an embrace, Spiros’s arms looped around her waist while she clutches his shoulders.

“I find that hard to believe,” Callista declares, looking at them.

“Well, you shouldn’t!” Louisa says.

She should. It’s a deeply uncomfortable pose.

“Because,” Louisa battles on, “we’re absolutely deranged with passion. Aren’t we, Spiros?”

“Oh.” Spiros moves to pat her on the head. Which is, of course, the universal sign of unbridled wanting. “Yep.”

“Deranged with passion, hmm?” Callista flirts, undaunted. “Sounds familiar. You remember?”

Spiros gulps. “I forgot.”

“I’ll remind you.”

“You bloody well will not,” Louisa says, stepping in front of him like a human shield.

Callista sighs. “Do you really like this boring English lady?”

“I really do,” Spiros says, his expression warming.

“More than you used to like me?”

“More than I ever liked anybody.”

He’s so dreadfully convincing.

Louisa holds in about a year’s worth of wistful lovelorn sighs.

Callista switches her attention to Louisa. “I will duel you for him.”

Oh, splendid. Just what she needs. The most inconvenient crush in all of history _ and _ loss of life or limb.

“Were you by any chance friends with Vasilia?” Louisa can’t resist asking.

“No duels!” Spiros barks. “Please, go.”

“Fine,” Callista says with a sullen exhale. “But I hope you know that I’m very bored, and you are the least boring man on this island. You should feel very guilty for abandoning me for this person.”

“Try finding a foreigner to date,” Louisa suggests. “It’s always worked for me. Well, until a stabbing or accordian comes along to wreck things.”

Callista makes an exquisitely judgmental face at her.

“Your new lover is crazy,” she tells Spiros.

“Maybe so,” Spiros agrees with a fond glance at Louisa. He slings an arm over her shoulders. It works much better this time.

Louisa rolls her eyes at him but leans into his touch. For authenticity.

“Good luck,” Callista tells him. Then she winks at Louisa. “Put him to good use.”

“Oh, I will,” says Louisa. A nervous laugh spills out of her mouth.

Callista takes her leave, sauntering down the drive. She trails her fingertip along Spiros’s car for the entire length of it. It’s a wonder the vehicle doesn’t burst into flames.

Then, just before disappearing into the sunlit trees, she turns. “Can I bring my nieces and nephew to see your animals? I think they would love them.”

“Of course,” Louisa says, relieved. “Any time. As long as you don’t try to steal my man, that is.” 

She pats Spiros’s chest. Again, that tittering laugh bursts out of her like a maniac fleeing a madhouse.

Callista snorts. Somehow, she makes even that appealing. “Don’t worry. I can tell when I am not wanted.”

“Oh, now you can tell,” Spiros mutters, albeit so quietly only Louisa can catch it.

Callista gives them a sardonic parting wave and continues down the way.

Now that the woman’s taken her claws out of Spiros, Louisa feels overwhelmed with a new generosity.

“I do think you’re so marvelous,” she calls after Callista, stepping forward, “for sacrificing your own life to take care of your poor family. It can’t have been easy.”

Callista turns around slowly. “Is that what he told you?” 

“Well--” Louisa falters.

“I like my family. Life with them is lots of fun. Chaos, yes. But not any kind of sacrifice.”

“I know the feeling,” Lousia acknowledges.

“It’s much better to run my own household than to put up with a husband. But,” Callista goes on, arching a devilish eyebrow, “that does not mean I don’t like other kinds of fun as well. I do.”

Louisa can’t help an appreciative laugh. “Don’t we all? If we can get it.” Then she remembers. “Which I can. Obviously.” She attempts to stroke Spiros’s face without looking back at him.

“Ow,” he complains.

“Do toughen up,” Louisa says through the grin she throws over her shoulder. “You’re smitten with me, remember?”

“Enjoy your fun, Boring English Lady,” Callista says with another parting wave. Despite really hoping that that nickname doesn’t stick, Louisa finds it much easier to like her than it was a few minutes ago.

She and Spiros stand close together, waving like idiots, until Callista has disappeared out of sight.

It feels rather a shame when she’s gone and there’s no excuse not to move apart.

At least Louisa has one distraction from the disappointment.

“You told me she was some kind of tragic heroine!” she scolds, swatting Spiros’s arm as they separate.

“I thought she was!” Spiros protests.

A few of the animals look their way in curiosity. One of the goats trots over to investigate.

“Clearly,” says Louisa, “she’s just a modern woman with a wonderful family and a healthy knowledge of her own … own sensual appetites!”

Spiros nearly trips over the goat at that one.

“And that’s not all,” Louisa soldiers on, mostly in the interest of leaving the phrase ‘sensual appetites’ in the dust. “_Pudding head_?”

“Yes. Pudding head.” Off Louisa’s still-incredulous look, Spiros persists, “You know! Pudding. A sweet dessert in England, yes?”

“Yes,” Louisa admits.

“So I was saying you’re sweet. It’s romantic.”

“It most certainly is not.”

“Why not?” he demands in perfect innocence.

It’s impossible to stay even a little irritated at him.

“I suppose some things are doomed to get lost in translation,” she relents, sitting down in one of the patio chairs. “You really couldn’t have just gone for ‘darling’?”

“I’m sorry, darling,” he teases, sitting in the chair beside hers.

“There,” Louisa says, and hopes she isn’t blushing, “much better.”

He rests his elbows on the table. “What is ‘schnookums,’ then?”

She mimics his pose. “A real pet name.”

“I think you made it up.”

“I did not!”

“You just made a random sound. I think I am insulted.”

“People in love say very stupid things. At least that one is well documented.” Off his merrily obstinate expression, she adds, “Would I lie to you?”

“Never.” He smiles at her and briefly clasps her hand. “Thank you for your help today, darling Mrs. Durrells. You saved me.”

She smiles back. “Any time, Spiros schnookums.”

“_Gah_. I still don’t like it.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not your sweetheart, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t know why she keeps saying these things lately. It’s like some buried part of her is always walking on a cliff’s edge, half-hoping to plummet down into the sea. Hungry for the scary bliss of falling.

He gazes at her. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

She looks down, unable to face the calm, sure sweetness in his eyes. She feels his fingers brush against her cheek.

“I’ll go now.” His touch disappears.

“Yes,” she says, looking back up, “yes, you must. You’ve wasted half your day here already.”

“Time with you is never a waste.” She wishes he didn’t make her feel so cherished. It turns the temptation to kiss a still-technically-married man almost unbearable. “Until tomorrow, hmm?”

“I can’t wait,” she says, meaning it, and watches him drive away into the afternoon sunshine.

+

“I can’t believe you and Spiros pretended to be lovers today and we missed it,” Margo laments that night at dinner. “Was there a lot of kissing?”

“No, there was no _ kissing_,” Louisa snaps.

“That’s why she’s in such a foul mood,” Larry explains in an all-knowing undertone.

Leslie snickers.

Louisa can’t decide which of her children to throw her forkful of dessert at, so she settles for taking a sulky bite.

On the plus side, it is good. It was hard to get puddings off the brain after this afternoon’s adventure, so she tried her hand at an authentic galaktoboureko, which is really just custard with a bit of a Greek spin on it.

Baking can be such an excellent distraction.

“At least by pretending to be his girlfriend,” Louisa says, fortified by the power of pudding, “I was able to help him get rid of that insatiable vixen of a woman.”

“Which woman was this, exactly?” Larry asks, perking up.

“No,” says Louisa, pointing sternly at him. She doesn’t add the part where said vixen will probably come to visit soon and bring the whole family.

“Ignore him, Mother,” Leslie advises sagely. “Some people can’t appreciate the unmatched happiness of a committed relationship.”

“Just because you’ve all but settled down to live boringly ever after with Daphne doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t keep expanding our horizons,” Larry says. “Right, Gerry?”

Gerry makes a face. It’s a relief to know that his crush on Galini hasn’t put him at Larry’s level of licentiousness yet.

“It _ is _ hilarious, isn’t it?” Louisa says in her best ‘what good fun’ tone. “The thought of Spiros and me as a couple.”

Everyone stares at her. No one bursts into riotous laughter.

She glances at Frank the sloth from where he’s hanging off his perch. Even he’s got a certain judgy something in his eyes.

“Fine,” she relents, scowling. “Maybe it’s not funny ha-ha. But it _ is _ funny-bizarre.”

“It’s funny ha-ha-how in denial you are,” Larry says consolingly. “That’s something.”

“Gerry.” Louisa turns to her youngest. “Please save me from the impertinent demons that are your older siblings.”

“Female sloths let out a mating scream,” Gerry replies, “to signal that it’s time for the males to come and compete for her. Maybe the woman should have tried that to get Spiros. Or maybe _ he _ should have done the mating scream, and then you and her could’ve fought over him.” His innocent grin cements that he, too, has joined the ranks of the demons.

“Nice one,” Leslie chuckles, clapping Gerry on the shoulder.

“I think Spiros could do quite a good mating scream,” Margo speculates. “He’s a powerful bellower, isn’t he?”

“Oh, absolutely agreed,” Larry says with the air of someone discussing philosophy.

“That’s it.” Louisa stands up, making the table rattle. “I’m going to bed. And I’m bringing the galaktoboureko with me.”

She grabs the dish and clutches it like a beloved infant. The most beloved of her infants right now, to be exact.

“No!”

“That’s not fair!”

“I haven’t gotten any yet!”

“We’re starving!”

“Oh, look,” Louisa says, “I’ve become mysteriously deaf to annoying people.”

Then she spins on her heel and makes her glorious exit. Roger trails after her. She pretends this is an act of solidarity instead of just an interest in dessert.

“Fine!” Larry calls. “Go upstairs and dream of Spiros.”

This is accompanied, predictably, by a lot of kissy sounds from her entire deranged brood.

“I will not!” Louisa calls over her shoulder. Once she’s out of their view, she looks down at Roger. “Can you believe these animals we live with? Dream of Spiros. Honestly!”

Roger tilts his head. It has an air of skepticism that a dog really shouldn’t be able to communicate.

“Not you too,” Louisa says, dismayed.

Roger whines.

+

The sky is the same deep blue of the sea, glorious enough to drown in, but she feels it only vaguely around her, and can’t be bothered to look away. There are far more delicious things to give her attention to.

She and Spiros are cozied up together underneath the kitchen table, which is -- for a reason that makes perfect sense, somehow -- outside on the beach. The table legs are woven with blossoming vines. There’s no one else around for miles and miles. The world has narrowed to this tiny oasis, to the points where they touch.

“My darling,” he murmurs, his lips on her neck, his hands wandering to where she wants them most, “my love--”

+

Louisa sits up abruptly in bed. For once, it’s not because there’s a goat licking her face.

Honestly, that would be less inconvenient.

“Really?” Louisa demands of her own subconscious. “You couldn’t dream of ‘pudding head’?”

In answer, her subconscious hits her with the nonexistent memory of Spiros’s mouth on her skin, hungry and worshipful.

“Oh, damn it,” she says crossly, and collapses back onto the pillows.

+

Louisa comes downstairs the next morning with an empty pastry dish in hand, nursing a headache and a general reluctance to live.

This is not lost on Larry. “Eesh. You look knackered. Bad dreams?” And then: “Good dreams?”

“I brought you into this world,” Louisa replies with great dignity, “and I can take you out of it.”

She drops the pastry dish on the table with a thud.

“Good dreams, then,” Larry mutters.

His siblings nod in grim agreement.

Louisa ignores them.

“Lugaretzia,” she effuses at the sight of her usual kitchen-mate. “How wonderfully un-confusing to see you.” She throws her arms around the old woman. “Thank you for being you, and not--”

She bites back ‘the maddeningly wonderful man of my dreams that I cannot in good conscience tear the clothes off of, no matter how much I might want to.’ Still, she thinks some of that meaning might come through, based on the look on poor Lugaretzia’s face.

“--um, anyone else,” Louisa finishes weakly.

“You are welcome?” Lugaretzia says, wrinkling her nose.

“Don’t mind her, Lugaretzia,” Larry says. “She’s just mad with sexual frustration.”

Lugaretzia’s wrinkled nose evolves into more of an all-around wrinkled face, like a child who’s just taken a spoonful of bitter medicine. She takes a deliberate step away from Louisa.

“You are absolutely ridiculous,” Louisa declares, with what she guesses is about twenty-seven percent effectiveness. “I spent yesterday helping out a friend by pretending to be his lover for entirely platonic reasons, and that is all! Sexual frustration simply doesn’t factor into it.”

As if punished by the universe, the telltale sound of a certain car horn comes from outside.

Louisa’s blood runs cold. Or maybe hot. Either way, it’s an alarming sensation.

“Oh, God, that’s him. What on earth is he doing here so early? I never thought he’d be back so soon. How do I look?” She strikes a desperate pose.

“Not great,” Margo says with her usual helpful honesty.

“I have to go upstairs and freshen up. You all distract him. Larry, tell him about what you’re writing. Gerry, tell him about whatever strange creature you’re obsessed with today.”

“Strange?” Gerry repeats, offended.

“--Leslie, you could describe some of Daphne’s most recent pregnancy symptoms, that’s always a laugh--”

“Constant urination,” Leslie reports proudly.

“--Margo, tell him all the irritating things Zoltan’s done lately so he can get all paternal and protective and go on one of those rants about making sure that Zoltan’s good enough for you.” A fond smile flutters onto her face at the thought.

“You’re getting distracted!” Margo cries. “And your hair is really bad!”

“Go! Go!” yell the others.

Louisa obeys.

“Your mother lusts for a married man,” she hears Lugaretzia say as she scampers out of the kitchen. “Not good. If she keeps it up, she is going to hell.”

“I think she might be in it already,” Larry says fairly.

“That’s an understatement,” Louisa mumbles as she sprints up the stairs.

+

When she comes downstairs ten minutes later to find Spiros happily chatting away with her children and his face lights up at the sight of her like she’s Cinderella at the ball instead of a frazzled mother of four who very nearly put on her trousers backwards -- well.

Life in hell becomes an easy predicament to forget.

**Author's Note:**

> Further antics in the sequel!: [I Still Recall The Thrill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21110306/chapters/50232605)


End file.
